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Appeared on: Thursday, March 14, 2013
Google To Shut Down Reader Feed App

Google plans to retire Google Reader in July, it said on Thursday, citing declining usage for the application that aggregates content served by web feeds.

Google launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. However, usage of the app has declined over the years. So, on July 1, 2013, Google will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

Users of the doomed app took to Twitter to vent about the closing of the service, making "Google Reader" one of the top trending topics on the microblogging site.

The move is part of Google's spring cleaning, which in 2011 and includes closures of many of Google's services.

Other services that will terminated include:

- Apps Script will be deprecating the GUI Builder and five UiApp widgets in order to focus efforts on Html Service. The rest of the Ui Service will not be affected. The GUI Builder will continue to be available until September 16, 2013.

- CalDAV API will become available for whitelisted developers, and will be shut down for other developers on September 16, 2013. Most developers' use cases are handled well by Google Calendar API.

- Google Building Maker helped people to make three-dimensional building models for Google Earth and Maps. It will be retired on June 1, but users are still able to access and export their models from the 3D Warehouse. Google plans to continue to expand the availability of new 3D imagery on Google Earth, and people can still use Google Map Maker to add building information such as outlines and heights to Google Maps.

- Google Cloud Connect is a plug-in to help people work in the cloud by automatically saving Microsoft Office files from Windows PCs in Google Drive. But installing Google Drive on your desktop achieves the same thing more effectively - and Drive works not only on Windows, but also on Mac, Android and iOS devices. Existing users will no longer be able to use Cloud Connect as of April 30.

- Beginning next week, Google is also ending support for the Google Voice App for Blackberry. For Blackberry users who want to continue using Google Voice, Google recommends they use our HTML5 app, which is more secure. Google's HTML5 site is compatible with users with Blackberry version 6 and newer.

- Google is deprecating its Search API for Shopping, which has enabled developers to create shopping apps based on Google's Product Search data. The company is shifting its focus to concentrate on creating a better shopping experience for users through Google Shopping. Google will shut the API down completely on September 16, 2013.

- Beginning today Google will no longer sell or provide updates for Snapseed Desktop for Macintosh and Windows. Existing users will continue to be able to download the software and can contact Google for support. Google will also continue to offer the Snapseed mobile app on iOS and Android for free.